Let us suppose you have a chest of drawers that you sorely need for storage space but cannot fit into your small apartment. What to do?

Here is one thought: Why not put it on wheels and leave it curbside in front of your building? Naturally, you accept a theft risk and an obligation to move the chest across the street every few days to comply with alternate-side parking rules.

Absurd, right? You can't just leave personal property on the street.

But what if we call that thing on wheels, oh, a car? Suddenly, it becomes O.K. to gobble up precious public space for your own benefit. Not only that, but on most streets you also need not pay a dime for this storage area.

So begins Clyde Haberman's "NYC" column in today's NYTimes.

While eventually we will be forced to ban on-street parking in New York, presumably starting only with Manhattan at first, it's not going to be easy, not least because of the sense of entitlement fostered for car owners by every city administration for over half a century.

Before 1950 it was illegal to park overnight in Manhattan. Transportation Alternatives activist John Tierney has cited how old photographs demonstrate "gracefully uncluttered streets. Many of the sidewalks were much wider than today's and adorned with greenery."

The city's pedestrian majority, as Police Commissioner Arthur Wallander approvingly observed in 1947, was firmly opposed to ''the public streets being used as garages.'' But the city's politicians had their own cars to park and favors to hand out. So some of the world's most expensive real estate has ended up being used to store hulks of metal, at unbeatable prices.

But of course he's not been alone in encouraging New Yorkers to take back the streets. Two and a half years ago Frank Pelligrini proposed in Time that incoming mayor Bloomberg be so bold as to make his mark by doing the right thing by all New Yorkers.

Banning parking would rev all the economic engines that the city runs on, and eliminate the real source of economic dead weight, namely private-vehicle owners who are just waiting for an excuse to get out of town for the weekend anyway

[image from unrev.com]

the keys to the city?

Ah, now I understand why former Mayor Ed Koch appears to be pimping for this Summer's Republican Convention. Koch has accepted a job as chairman of a drive to attract thousands of volunteers to help with the event, but a NYTimes story which appeared April 28 seems to offer redemption for the old man.

It is accepted as an article of faith among protesters planning to demonstrate against the Republican National Convention this summer that agents seeking to undermine their efforts have infiltrated their ranks. But now the protesters are talking about infiltrating the convention to undermine the event itself.

"Really?" said Kevin Sheekey, president of the New York City Host Committee, when told that protesters were talking about flooding the ranks of volunteers to disrupt convention operations.

The city is obligated to find a total of 8,000 New Yorkers to volunteer to help things run smoothly, and would-be protesters are hoping that by signing up, they can work from the inside during the convention, scheduled Aug. 30 through Sept. 2.

"A lot of people are talking about it in general," said William Etundi Jr., a founder of counterconvention.org, a Web site that serves as a bulletin board for anti-convention activities. "The Republicans are coming to New York City, so maybe the real New York should come to them."

Koch has enraged progressives for years, but the closeted, way-erstwhile Democratic community activist could hardly have expected to abandon absolutely everything he ever represented* in order to beat the drum for a Republican candidate who has never disavowed his personal support while governor for the Texas law which mandates imprisonment for homosexuals. Or could he?

Yes he could. If you see him around town, tell him exactly how he's doing, even though he's no longer asking us the question. Oh, and while you have his attention, don't forget to ask him what he did about AIDS during his watch.

Of course we know that Koch is not actually in the loop for the horse project, so what's really going on? How did we get to the point where a political party's supreme campaign stunt can be represented as "non-political," in the former mayor's own words. On Sunday, the Times's Michael Slackman wrote that current mayor Michael Bloomberg, also a former Democrat, is trying to persuade New Yorkers that the convention is not political because it is happening in their city. Even Koch admits that it's "one of the most political events of the nation."

Political, indeed, said William K. Dobbs, spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, a group that hopes to have hundreds of thousands of protestors focusing on the convention in a very partisan way. "If the R.N.C. is non-partisan, I'm Greta Garbo," said Mr. Dobbs. "A political party's convention by its nature is partisan. This is loony."

____________________

*
From an interview which appeared in POZ last December, where Michael Musto and Tony Kushner are discussing the film version of "Angels In America":

Musto: One thing that is missing is the line outing former New York City mayor Ed Koch, an arch-enemy of AIDS activists, as gay.

Kushner: I don’t know if that was gone in the screenplay or taken out in editing. Maybe the [filmmakers] figured no one knows who Ed is anymore, which would be a lovely thing to believe. Oblivion is what Ed deserves. When the play was on Broadway, a New York name lawyer who’s a friend of Koch’s asked me if I’d please take the line out because it was really hurting Ed’s feelings. I left it in. It was mean to do, but I really hated him. He’s such a ghastly man and such a betrayer of the progressive vision he rose to prominence on. He became such a reactionary blimp.

[Tiepolo, The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy (1773) oil on canvas, 39 x 67 cm, National Gallery, London, the image from The Web Gallery of Art]

Coming in from 23rd Street, I went back into our lobby and past another set of doors to the garden, where I found these [another score for the number 2] dogwood trees.

Incredibly, this too is Manhattan.

Remembering that as of today I've been at this blog for two full years, I went outside to look for something visual in twos. I found these three on the awning marquee of the Chelsea Hotel accross the street.

this is as sophisticated as it gets

Ray Sanchez knows what the city won't tell us: No one is really doing anything about subway security. But then, why should we be surprised? The subway isn't the politicians and bureaucrats' thing. They don't use it.

At the same time it hasn't escaped the notice of some of us that there's still talk about entirely shutting down Penn Station and the Main Post Office during the Republican Convention for the safety of hundreds or thousands of treasured Republican plutocrats.

The conductor stood in the cab of the subway car, her door ajar. People have a false sense of security on the subway, she said. "The politicians who never ride the trains are very reassuring, aren't they?"

The New York Police Department is rushing to train 10,000 officers in counter-terrorism in time for the summer's Republican National Convention, but there are transit workers without fire and evacuation training.

"I'm one of them," said the conductor, who has eight years on the job. "You hope common sense is enough to get you through an emergency, but, you know, common sense goes out the window."

And, in the event, the riders too, if there's going to be no direction from "security."

[image from Rachelle Bowden at rachelleb]

Wallspace Gallery shows the photo work of artists you probably haven't seen before. Once you have however, you'll want to keep looking.

The current Joseph Maida show is no exception. There may be a small world in each photograph, but they all seem to come from the larger cosmos of the artist. But the settings themselves remain pretty ordinary. So then how does this stuff become so captivating? And it's not just the luxurious light.

[images from Wallspace Gallery]

Joe Andoe untitled (Car on road) 2003 oil on canvas 57 1/2 x 82 inches

I loved this show. Period. But check out the stories on the gallery site.

[image from Feigen Contemporary]

Anton Kern is currently exhibiting two very different artists in his two rooms on 20th Street, and they are surprisingly comfortable together.

Jim Lambie, "Mental Oyster" (installation detail)

Edward Krasinski (installation detail)

one small work on paper (detail)

More group life from Providence, Rhode Island, even if these three guys are now sowing their art all about the country.

Foxy Production is currently showing the work of the collaborative Paper Rad, composed of of Jacob Ciocci, Jessica Ciocci and Benjamin Jones. Look for gorgeous paper, paint, video, cloth, music and sculpture, including familiar icons reimagined and everything invested with smart good humor. Don't miss the treasure chest in the back room.

it's a slippery slope

But it's 2004! Why do we still have to deal with this accursed thing? I've absolutely had it with the abominations of the Catholic Church, and don't get me started on all the other monstrously evil cults which compete with it in advancing fear and superstition in this benighted land and around the world.

Bloggy discovered last night that my home state of Michigan is about to institutionalize unreason, bigotry and hate.

Doctors or other health care providers could not be disciplined or sued if they refuse to treat gay patients under legislation passed Wednesday by the Michigan House.

The bill allows health care workers to refuse service to anyone on moral, ethical or religious grounds.

The Republican dominated House passed the measure as dozens of Catholics looked on from the gallery. The Michigan Catholic Conference, which pushed for the bills, hosted a legislative day for Catholics on Wednesday at the state Capitol.

If these idiots want religious war, I think we should let them have it. I'm in.

I know the Catholic Church like few others do. My family has practiced its magic for almost two thousand years and most of them continue to do so. I was educated in a Catholic elementary school staffed entirely by nuns, an Augustinian Prep School manned by black-robed priests and brothers, and a Jesuit not-so-liberal-arts university.

In that time I learned just about everything they wanted me to learn about "The Church," and I never questioned the system, but within a few weeks of my arrival at the University of Wisconsin Madison the entire structure of intellectual restraints collapsed and I learned how to breathe freely for the first time.

Years later I find even more darkness all around me, and I am its enemy.

In spite of cries of alarm coming from those who carry its torches, religion is not persecuted in this country. Reason is persecuted in this country. Religion is winning.

[image from a French Charles Taze Russell site, where it is captioned, "Fratricide — Autodafé à Paris"]